No. 2460

Chaudfroid of Fillets of Redhead Duck and Venison

Chaudfroid de Filets de Canard Tete Rouge et de Venaison

Raise the fillets from five redhead ducks, without the wings or minions; pare them into half-hearts; season and saute in clarified butter, keeping them rare; then drain and cool off under a light weight between two pieces of buttered paper; remove the skin, pare them again to have all alike, and dip in a brown chaudfroid sauce (No. 594) reduced with game fumet (No. 397), properly thickened on ice; range them at some distance apart on a baking sheet to harden the sauce; decorate with ornaments of truffles dipped in jelly, and coat the whole in half-set jelly. Cut ten pieces of very red beef tongue, not too thick, but of the same shape and size as the fillets; lay a duck fillet on each piece of tongue, making it adhere, and let get cold. Dress these upright against a vegetable salad cut in small dice, and thickened with jellied mayonnaise (No. 613), then molded in a small pyramidical mold. Surround the bottom with a thick rope of jelly pushed through a pocket. On the top of the pyramid place a cluster of jelly cut in small squares.

Chaudfroid of Venison.—Cut a fillet of venison into slices; dip them in a brown chaudfroid sauce (No. 594) properly thickened on ice, then lay to cool on a baking sheet; when cold, pare and dress in a circle; glaze over with jelly, fill the center with chopped jelly, and outside with a border of jelly croutons.

← No. 2459 Chaudfroid of Quails a la Baudy The Cold Service No. 2461 Chaudfroid of Snipe in Pyramid →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a two-part cold buffet piece from Delmonico's kitchen, and almost all of the work is in temperature control rather than cooking. The hinge is the phrase "properly thickened on ice": the chaudfroid sauce must be stirred over ice until it just coats a spoon and no further, because a sauce that is too warm runs off the fillets and one that has set even slightly goes lumpy and cannot be smoothed.

Redhead duckA wild diving duck. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act it cannot be bought or sold in the United States, so unless you have legally taken birds yourself this is made with farmed duck. Five redheads yield ten small fillets; two large Moulard magrets or four Pekin breasts give roughly the same quantity of meat, though the flavor is milder than that of the wild bird.
"Without the wings or minions"Minions are the filets mignons, the small strip of muscle lying under each breast. Pull them off and keep them for something else; they are removed here so the ten main fillets can all be pared to identical half-heart shapes.
Keeping them rareSkinless breast fillets in clarified butter need about two minutes a side over medium-high heat for a wild bird, three to four for a farmed magret half. They will firm further as they chill under the weight, so pull them noticeably underdone.
Pressing between buttered paperParchment does the job of the buttered paper. A light weight, a small board or a plate, flattens the fillets to an even thickness so the sauce coats uniformly; heavy pressing squeezes out the juices and leaves the meat dry.
The sauce and the jellyNo. 594 is a brown chaudfroid: espagnole-based sauce enriched with aspic so that it sets. Reduced with game fumet (No. 397) it becomes intensely savory. In a modern kitchen the same effect comes from a strong reduced demi-glace bloomed with enough gelatin to set firm but sliceable, roughly 2 to 2.5 percent by weight of liquid. "Jelly" throughout means clear aspic, not fruit preserve.
"Very red beef tongue"Cured and pickled tongue, sold cooked at delicatessens, which is where the color comes from; fresh-boiled tongue is grey-brown and will not read against the dark sauce. Slice it thin enough to bend slightly but thick enough to carry a fillet upright.
Jellied mayonnaiseNo. 613 is mayonnaise set with aspic. It contains raw egg and is held at buffet temperature for the length of the service, which is the weak point of the whole dish; keep the assembled pyramid refrigerated until the last possible moment and do not leave it out for more than two hours.
"Pushed through a pocket"A pastry bag. The rope of jelly is piped from firm, barely-set aspic; if it is too soft it slumps, so work with it chilled and refill the bag often.
YieldTen fillets, so ten portions as one element of a cold buffet. The venison variation, essentially the same technique on sliced loin, is a separate presentation rather than part of the same platter.

A Little History

Chaudfroid means "hot-cold": a dish cooked hot, then coated with a sauce that sets to a glaze and served cold, a display technique that became established in the nineteenth century and was carried to its extreme in the grand hotel and restaurant kitchens of the period. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894, and this entry sits in a long run of cold-service pieces built almost entirely out of aspic, truffle cutouts and molded salad. What dates it most is the bird. Redhead and canvasback ducks were market game in Ranhofer's day, shot commercially on the Chesapeake and Long Island bays and sold to city restaurants. Market hunting of migratory waterfowl was progressively outlawed in the decades that followed, culminating in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, and with it went the entire class of restaurant cookery that assumed wild duck, snipe and plover could simply be ordered from a supplier.